


you take my hand, leaving me breathless

by transzoemurphy



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Blind Character, Blind Evan, Deaf Character, Deaf Jared, Emotional Maturity, First Kiss, Lowercase, M/M, evan's dog's name is murphy, seeing-eye dog, talking about feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 02:19:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19714309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transzoemurphy/pseuds/transzoemurphy
Summary: based on an anon i got: "Jared is nonverbal, he only communicates in asl, so he and Evan have no way to talk to each other. So they have to slowly and patiently learn a series of tactile responses to learn how to communicate. So it's just the two of them cuddled up in the bleachers making shapes into each other's hands and they have their own private language basically."





	you take my hand, leaving me breathless

jared hadn't always been deaf. he was able to hear until he was around one, when he'd begun to lose his hearing. he'd never been able to talk, really, and honestly he didn't want to try to learn at least until after high school. high schoolers were cruel. at least this way jared didn't have to hear their bullshit.

evan had never been able to see. he could keep his eyes open, and appeared seeing, which heightened his anxiety when he couldn't tell what people thought of him. he'd told this to jared through tactile asl, a form of asl where everything was signed on the body of the other person, so deafblind people could communicate, and blind and deaf people could communicate, and vice versa.

it had been quite a while since jared had used tactile asl. he'd communicated with evan through technology from tenth grade on, and after their fight, a year passed in which neither reached out.

until evan, with a guide dog by his side, found jared in an empty stadium and ran over.

evan had been running. jared hadn't been watching; he'd been reading aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe for maybe the thousandth time. except he had glanced up every once in a while to look over at evan, and "every once in a while" was, like, every three seconds. it wasn't his fault that the boy was gorgeous.

"jared," evan said — jared recognised the shape of his name on the other's lips immediately.

the dog stopped in front of them and jared smiled down at it. he took the hand evan had extended to him.

"can i pet your dog?" he asked, albeit slowly, in tactile asl.

"yes, she's friendly."

jared scratched behind the dog's ears and felt the vibration of a purr.

"she likes you!"

"what's her name?"

"murphy." evan took his time spelling the word out on jared's hand. jared couldn't help but shiver at the feeling of evan's hand tracing along his. "can i sit?"

"yes."

evan sat and jared took one of evan's hands with both of his own. "evan? i fucked up."

evan nodded.

"i think i owe you an explanation."

jared felt a light touch and then evan's head was resting tentatively on his shoulder. jared took that as an invitation to begin.

"listen, i was — maybe listen isn't the best choice of words." he paused to think for a second. "when we were younger, i was an asshole."

he felt evan nod against his shoulder and giggled. "fuck you."

"fuck you too." there was no malice, no venom in their signs.

time couldn't heal all wounds, but jared let himself believe it could help some.

"i was scared that you would leave me," jared admitted. "so i pushed you away. evan, i'm — i was in love with you since 7th grade."

"...that's a long time."

"yeah." jared sighed. "but i got scared so i pushed you away, and that wasn't fair of me. i'm sorry."

"it's okay," evan responded. he leaned into jared, the smell of his apple-cinnamon shampoo wafting up to jared, and jared wanted to cry. god, he'd missed this.

"i was in love with you too," evan said.

jared froze for a second. "me?"

"yeah."

"really? because if you're messing with me..."

"really. i," he hesitated, "still like you."

"i like you too. a lot! a lot a lot. in a gay way. i like you a lot in a gay way."

"i like you a lot in a gay way too," evan responded.

the two soaked in the moment for a second before evan trailed his hand up to jared's cheek. "can i?"

"yeah."

and evan kissed him. soft, and sweet, but radiating so much passion and repressed feelings that jared found himself overwhelmed.

and jared kissed him back, pressing i love yous into evan's hand, leaning into him like he was the only person who mattered. because at that moment, he was.

and for that moment, it was just jared and evan and they weren't fighting against the world or themselves, they were just living in it, and the autumn air swirled around them, and they were trapped in their own private piece of the world.

**Author's Note:**

> im Depressed As All Hell but follow my tumblr @trans-zoe-murphy


End file.
